The Ethnography of Shaligram Shila

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The book
is nearly complete! It’s been a long road but I will be turning in the revised
and completed manuscript to my publisher in just a few weeks. I believe I’ve
mentioned it before but I have decided that my current research will be
separated into two different books. The first, which hopefully will be coming
out sometime around the beginning of next year, is my principal ethnography
about Shaligram pilgrimage in Mustang, Nepal and about the active practice of Shaligram
ritual traditions throughout South Asia. The second is going to be about
Shaligram interpretive traditions. This way, I can frame the first book as an
introduction to the topic of Shaligram pilgrimage for academics and laypeople
who aren’t likely to have any prior background or knowledge of Shaligrams at
all. The second book can then be designed more for Hindus, Buddhists, and
Bonpos who already have some prior experience with and understanding of
Shaligrams or who actually practice with Shaligrams right now.

But as I finish up this first manuscript and get it off to the next step in the
process, I’m starting to think about how I want the second manuscript to work.
I already have a series of “field guide”-style pages that detail the
characteristics of each of the 90 or so name-categories of Shaligram stones and
I think those will be especially valuable to practitioners. But I also want to
have some kind of commentary at the beginning that discusses exactly how
Shaligrams are read. This is a challenge, of course, because there are several
different Shaligram interpretive traditions and each tradition reads the shilas in slightly different ways. But
here is a little of what I am thinking.

Firstly, I want to talk about the main sets of characteristics: shape, color, set,
vadana (mouth), vanamala (white thread), and chakra (spiral). Each of these
characteristics exists on something of a spectrum. In other words, there are a
variety of shapes a Shaligram might appear in, a few different colors, and it
might have one or more vadanas or chakras. Or, as it may be, none at all. In
any case, this makes any discussion of variations potentially limitless and I
just don’t have the time or space to cover every possible permutation.

Secondly, I will need to have some commentary on each of the current Shaligram
traditions. There are, for example, several Vaishnava Shaligram traditions, a
few Shaiva traditions, a number of Smarta traditions, as well as both Jain and
Buddhist traditions. Not surprisingly, these various traditions all tend to use
different combinations of sacred texts, guru lineages, and deity genealogies to
interpret the specific manifestation present in the shila and, though they overlap significantly, they are each unique
and distinct. I’ve compiled a table of my data and descriptions, but I am note
entirely sure what I want to do with it just yet.

And lastly, I want to both acknowledge and pay homage to the Shaligram books
that have come before me. The two main ones being, of course, Rao’s Shaligram
Kosha and Ram Charan Sharma’s Shaligram Puran (I discuss pilgrimage
literature in the ethnography). Both of these works, though extremely difficult
to find outside of India, have been instrumental in my research and deserve the
best citations I can give them. They also aptly demonstrate some of the challenges
of working with Shaligram traditions as they move outwards from the Himalayas.
As Sharma’s work shows, for example, several Shaligram traditions have begun to
incorporate other sacred stones, such as Dwaraka shilas and Shiva Lingams, and
ritual objects, such as murti and
coins, in place of rarer Shaligrams that have been otherwise too difficult to
obtain. This means that any given Shaligram puja
might incorporate a wide variety of mantras,
images, objects, or other accoutrements whose relationships to one another
might not be immediately apparent.

Ultimately,
as I continue to contemplate how best to move forward, I have been
experimenting with a few ways to demonstrate “reading Shaligrams.” One,
represented by the image below, takes a diagrammatical approach to mapping out
specific characteristics and their meanings. I’m also considering using other
combinations of tables, images, scans, and drawings to highlight the important
processes in the most understandable way I can. Hopefully, either later this
year or next year, I’ll have the chance to devote a significant amount of time
to it and to the complementary online database I’ve been contemplating for a
while now.

Reading Shaligrams is a challenge. Both in terms of reading about them and reading the shilas themselves. So, it’s going to be
a delicate balance. I’ve already included as many Vedic, Puranic, Shastric, and
Tantric references as I can and I will continue to document the various ways in
which both sacred texts and peoples over time have come to understand
Shaligrams and to receive darsan of
the deities present. But in the end, I know that I can’t include everything. It’s
a start, though.

Furthermore, I’m interested to hear what you all might think, in terms of
format, information, or presentation. If anyone has any thoughts, I’m open to
suggestions! Feel free to comment here or contact me on Twitter: @Manigarm

Whenever I am paging through endless spreadsheets of museum collection data on fossils I am always on the lookout for a few magic words: Ammonite, Spiti Shales, Nepal (or Tibet), Himalayas, and possibly Perisphinctes. Recently, while reviewing some fossil collection data supplied by the Oxford Museum of Natural History in the UK, I can across just such a listing for a series of Himalayan ammonite specimens they had listed as “purchased at a bazaar in Southern Tibet.”

While my current review of worldwide museum collections is geared towards an upcoming second manuscript on Shaligram interpretive traditions, it did also get me thinking about labels again. The vast majority of the Western world knows Shaligrams only by scientific categories and because of this, is largely ignorant of their meanings beyond that of a common index fossil (more suited to the backroom of a collection or to a souvenir shelf than much else). They are fossil ammonites, they are primarily found in Nepal and Tibet, they are produced by a geological formation known as the Spiti Shales, and they are comprised of roughly four species of extinct Jurassic shellfish: Blandifordiceras, Haplophylloceras, and Perisphinctids (including both Aulacosphinctus of the Upper Kimmeridgian/Lower Tithonian and Aulacosphinctoides of the Upper Tithonian). Other Shaligram formations include belemnites (such as the Ram Shaligram) and the bivalve Retroceramus (such as the Anirudda Shaligram) but for the most part, “classic” Shaligram manifestations are, by and large, comprised of various black shale ammonites that fit the aforementioned paleontological criteria. In other words, these categories have produced a specific kind of knowing about Shaligrams and about fossils in general that represents a particular perspective in the history of scientific knowledge production.

In Ancient Greece, ammonites were known as “Cormu Ammonis,”“Corni de Ammone,” or “Cornamone” because their shapes were thought to resemble the tightly coiled ram’s horns used to represent the Egyptian god Ammon. Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – AD 79) even referred to them in the 37th volume of his work Naturalis Historia. In it, he writes: “The Hammonis cornu is among the holiest gems of Ethiopia, it is golden in colour and shows the shape of a ram’s horn; one assures that it causes fortune-telling dreams” (see also Nelson 1968). The ‘golden colour’ he refers to is a likely reference to the fact that many ammonite fossils, including Shaligrams, are often covered in iron pyrites which give them a sparkling golden appearance. Georgius Agricola, sometimes referred to as “the father of mineralogy” and the author of De Re Metallica, a work based on Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, also referred to ammonites as Ammonis Cornu. Even today, ammonite genus names often end with –ceras, the Greek word (κέρας) for “horn.”

The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner also included some ammonite illustrations is his work De rerum fossilium (1565), but even toward the end of the 17th century, it is especially interesting to note that the organic nature of ammonites remained under debate (a debate which takes places in the Hindu Scriptures as well – most notably in reference to the formative workings of the vajra kita, or the thunderbolt worm). Robert Hooke, the famed experimental scientist and nemesis of Sir Isaac Newton, was fascinated by the logarithmic coil of ammonite shells and their regularly arranged septa (recall the classic image of the golden ratio). It was he who reached the conclusion that ammonites were not only of organic origin but also widely resembled the nautilus and may therefore be related. However, it wasn’t until 1716 that ammonites would finally join scientific taxonomy with a classification scheme first recorded by another Swiss naturalist, Johann Jacob Scheuchzer. The modern form of the word ammonite was then coined by the French zoologist Jean Guillaume Bruguière in 1790, but it wasn’t until 1884 that the subclass Ammonoidea was finally formalized in modern zoological taxonomy (Romano 2014).

In China, however, ammonites were called horn stones (jiao-shih) and were typically used in traditional medicine. Japanese texts, on the other hand, refer to them as chrysanthemum stones (kiku-ishi) and Buddhists interpreted their clockwise spirals (a representation of the direction in which the universe rotates) as a focus for meditation or as symbols of the eight-spoked wheel of dharma (an interpretation currently shared by many Buddhist pilgrims to Mustang, Nepal as well). Additionally, among ancient Celts, these fossils have been interpreted as a kind of petrified venomous snake (ophites) and referred to as “serpent stones.” In medieval England, ammonites (along with various other types of fossils) were taken as evidence for the actions of Biblical saints such St. Patrick, St. Keyne Wyry of Wiltshire (ca 461 – 505), or St. Hilda of Whitby (ca 614 – 680). According to Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion,[i] fossil ammonites were serpents that infested the region of Whitby before the coming of St. Hilda, who subsequently defeated the serpents and turned them to stone on the site where she intended to build an abbey (see also Skeat 1912).[ii]

In the Americas, Cretaceous baclitid ammonites were also once collected by the Indigenous peoples as “buffalo stones,” and were kept in medicine pouches as aids in corralling bison (Mayor 2005). Called Iniskim, members of the Blackfoot First Nations continue to harvest bright opalescent ammonites for ceremonial purposes even today.[iii] Furthermore, aside from their role as Shaligrams, ammonites also have a long and storied history more broadly in what Alexandra van der Geer refers to as the ‘fossil folklore’ of South Asia. She relates in detail, for example, entire regions of fossil beds containing not only ammonites but ancient giraffes, elephants, and tortoises near the Siwalik Hills of the Himalayas in India, which are used as evidence in proof of the great cosmic battle of Kurukshetra as described in the Mahabharata epic and which are also visited by religious pilgrims from all over the world (2008).

Isn’t it surprising then, given the incredible history of ammonites beyond geologic categories, that this information, these labels, almost never make it into museum collections? I’ve never seen, for example, any such exhibit that displays fossils in this way, unless, of course, we start talking about religious museums. I have no doubt that the Creation Museum in Kentucky has its own take on the fossil record and one that, undoubtedly, stands in opposition to science; that makes claims to truth over evidence and only that which aligns with their particular interpretation of Biblical texts. But like so many Shaligram practitioners, I do not mean to present Shaligrams here as any kind of potential foil to scientific inquiry or to imply, in any way, that the creation stories of Shaligrams are distinctly at odds with evolutionary theory. Because, for the most part, they aren’t (see: “Living Fossils” – https://thefamiliarstrange.com/2018/06/07/living-fossils/). And, in fact, I might argue that this division of modern museums and their preferred display narratives is more representative of the politics of religion and science in the West broadly than it is about what a Shaligram, or even an ammonite, “really” is.

What I imagine then is the opportunity to design a museum exhibit that pays tribute to all kinds of ways of knowing; to blend the narratives of Deep Geological Time with Mythic Time in such a way as to demonstrate the richness of fossil traditions both within science and without. I’m not entirely sure what I think it would look like just yet but if I were to incorporate Shaligrams, I would be sure to present them respectful to the contexts of their ritual practices, to emblazon placards with instructions on their interpretive traditions (I can see it now: “How to Read a Shaligram! In Six Easy Steps”), and to link the geological understanding of the tectonic creation of the Himalayas with the stories of sinmo and asuras (demons), Vishnu and Shiva, and the transformation of the goddess Tulsi into the river Gandaki. I would strive to introduce museum goers to the stories of gods and monsters, tectonic plates and dinosaurs, evolution and creation through labels, exhibits, and collection data that are all-at-once scientific, spiritual, and imaginative. And, if nothing else, to preserve all manner of histories; from those told by the ancient peoples who first encountered fossil stones, to the faithful pilgrims who continue the tradition, to the scientists who interpret them now, to the stories told by the stones themselves. After all, what is the Past if not the simmering cauldron from which the present emerges?

[ii] Skeat, W.W., 1912. ““Snakestones” and stone thunderbolts as subjects for systematic investigation.” Folk-lore, 23: 45-80. Additionally, during the 19th century, it was not uncommon for people to carve images of snake’s heads around the bottom aperture of the ammonite shell so as to better the appearance of a snake in coiled repose.

[iii] See also: Rainbow Ammonites and Bison Stones available at https://albertashistoricplaces.wordpress.com/2018/01/10/rainbow-fossils-and-bison-calling/

I’m excited to announce that my book manuscript has been accepted and is now officially under contract with Amsterdam University Press for their “New Mobilities in Asia” ethnographic series. Over the next several months I will be revising, editing, and restructuring the work to better fit the book format but you can now look forward to my Shaligram research becoming widely available.

Now, however, I have one more hurdle to get over. The title.

If anyone has any suggestions for a book title, I would be happy to hear them!

The original title of the research draft was: “Shaligram: Sacred Stones, Ritual Practices, and the Politics of Mobility in Nepal.”

The goal is, of course, to simplify it and make it easy to find via online searches. For this reason, we are currently considering something like: “Sacred Fossils, Pilgrimage, and Politics in the Nepal Himalayas” and “Shaligram Pilgrimage and Mobility in the Nepal Himalayas.”

But nothing is set in stone just yet. Except for the Shaligrams themselves, that is.

While it is listed as Dadhivamana in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, this Shaligram is often described as a variation of the more common Vamana Shaligram of the Dasavatara sequence of Vishnu’s incarnations (See Vamana Shaligram). Its description differs from the more standard Vamana Shaligram however, in that the Dadhivamana Shaligram is often identified by ritual specialists as having a “raised head, being yellowish in color, and containing unclear chakras.”

The Dadhivamana Shaligram takes its name from the Dadhi Vamana Stotra (Prayer to Vamana) where Vishnu takes the incarnation of Vamana, his fifth avatar, to destroy the pride of the great Asura king Mahabali. Though a demon, Mahabali was a benevolent emperor. But he usurped the Deva kingdom and as such, Vishnu took the form of a young, dwarf, Brahmin boy called Vamana and requested that he be granted three steps of land as measured by his feet. In spite of his guru’s opposition, Mahabali agreed. Vamana then took the gigantic form of Trivikrama and measured all of the three worlds in two steps. When Mahabali offered his head as a third step, Vamana then requested that instead, Mahabali should live forever in Patala (the underworld). In Kerala, devotees believe that Mahabali makes his home-coming during the festival of Thiruvonam and in Karnataka, devotees believe that he visits them every year on the Bali Padyami. In this way, the Dadhivamana Shaligram is often brought out during the celebrations of these festival seasons.

This Shaligram is also associated with Vamana’s preference for anointing sacred beings in curd or offering rice mixed with curd where he confers strength to the tongue (so as to speak nothing but the truth) and gives a pleasing odor to the mouth.

References: Brahmavaivartta (Prakritikhanda, Ch. 21)

Descriptions:

Small in size with two circular marks (BV).

Very small in size with two circular marks, and having the color of a new cloud. (BV)

Also described as “yellowish, with unclear chakras.”

Discussion:

The Dadhivamana Shaligram is usually uneven in overall shape with one or more openings that appear yellowish in color. The body of the Shaligram itself is also usually mottled with yellow or orange infiltrates and is typically grey to dark blue in color.

Vaikuntha (the Place of Non-Hindrance), Paramapadam, Vishnupada (Vishnu’s feet), or Param Padam (the Supreme Abode) is the celestial home of Vishnu. In most of the Puranas, and in the majority of Vaishnava traditions, Vaikuntha is located in the direction of the Makara Rashi, a celestial formation which roughly coincides with the constellation of Capricorn. Vishnu’s eye is then said to be located at the South Celestial Pole.

Vaikuntha Shaligrams are rare in practice. Oftentimes, the Vishnu Padam Shaligram (See Mahavishnu – Dasavatara Shaligram) takes its place or is identified itself as “Vaikuntha.” In other Shaligram traditions, however, the Vaikuntha Shaligram is identified by its distinctive “two-tiered” structure, where a small, central, spiral can be seen beneath the edge of a larger outer spiral or sunken down beneath the edge of the central shape nodule.

Vaikuntha is also “the one who prevents men from straying down the wrong path” (Vikunthah) and the Shaligram itself is often described as a “seat of Vishnu.” For this reason, veneration of this Shaligram is said to bestow blessings of a strong 6th sense, to ensure moksha (liberation) for the devotee, and to protect the devotee from false information, poor teachings, or disreputable gurus. This Shaligram is also said to be especially partial to requests for guidance or safety and, due to its association with the dwelling places of Vishnu, is often taken on pilgrimages or other religious journeys undertaken by the devotee.

The formation of a Vaikuntha Shaligram typically comes about when the entire or nearly the entire ammonite mold has worn out of the shale nodule, leaving a clear chakra-spiral visible on the internal portion of the stone with an overhanging section still partially covering it. It is also not uncommon for the central portions of these Shaligrams to contain significant iron pyrite deposits, lending the entire spiral a gold coloration.

Yajna (or conversely, Yagna) literally translates as “sacrifice, worship, or offering,” and refers, in modern Hinduism, to any ritual done in front of a sacred fire. The tradition has evolved considerably over time, however, from the offering of objects and libations into a sacred fire to symbolic offerings in the presence of sacred fire (Agni). The word yajna appears throughout the earliest Vedic literatures (2nd millennium BCE) such as in the Brahmanas and in the Yajurveda. In the Rigveda, Yajurveda and others, it means “worship, devotion to anything, prayer and praise, an act of worship or devotion, a form of offering or oblation, and sacrifice.” In post-Vedic literature, the term meant any form of rite, ceremony or devotion with an actual or symbolic offering or effort.

Yajna ritual-related texts are also called the Karma-kanda (ritual works) portion of the Vedic literatures, in contrast to Jnana-kanda (knowledge) portions contained in the Upanishads. The proper completion of Yajna-like rituals was the primary focus of Mimansa school of Hindu philosophy, though the performance of various types of yajna ceremonies have continued to play a central role in a Hindu’s rites of passage, festivals, and community events. Modern major Hindu temple ceremonies, Hindu community celebrations, or monastic initiations may also include Yajna rites, or may alternatively be based on agamic rituals.

Yajnamurti Shaligrams are most often described as having markings of the two sacrificial sticks (sruk and sruva) along with a wide, flat, body and at least one (but occasionally two or three) large holes or depressions. These Shaligrams should also contain sections or portions of red to reddish-orange coloration. Generally considered to be a subtype of the Mahavishnu – Dasavatara type Shaligram, Yajnamurti Shaligrams are commonly sought after for inclusion in specific home or community yajna rites as a presiding deity. (Also, depending on the tradition, sometimes associated with or considered to be a subtype of Kapila Shaligrams)

Veneration more generally also remains similar to other Mahavishnu Shaligrams, where they are said to ward off misfortune and to protect the family and community from evil spirits, unquiet ghosts, or from deceit through witchcraft or magic. As uninvoked, presiding deities at yajna rites, they are also said to ensure proper performance of the ritual and to ensure that the merits of the ritual are reciprocally rewarded.

References: Praanatoshani Tantra pg. 351 – 356

Descriptions:

Yajnamurthi: Reddish yellow in color, with a small opening and two circular marks, one at the bottom and one the other side on the right side. (P)

I have a request to make. As part of the last section of my upcoming book, I want to include as many Scriptural references to Shaligrams as possible. My current compilation is solid but short, and I want to make sure that I am citing everything correctly.

If you are able, in the comments section or in a private message, can you send me any citations you are aware of or please offer the chapter and verse numbers of the citations below if you know them. I will continue to add more as my own archival research continues, but I am, as always, grateful for your help.

“With Keshava in the form of Salagrama śila reside all the devatas, asuaras, yaksas and the fourteen worlds.”- Padma Purāṇa

“All those holy rivers awarding moksha, such as the Ganga, Godavari and others, reside in the caranamrita of shalagrama.”- Padma Purāṇa

Lord Shiva states, “My devotees who offer obeisances to the shalagrama even negligently become fearless. Those who adore me while making a distinction between myself and Lord Hari will become free from this offence by offering obeisances to shalagrama. Those who think themselves as my devotees, but who are proud and do not offer obeisances to my Lord Vasudeva, are actually sinful and not my devotees. O my son, I always reside in the shalagrama. Being pleased with my devotion the Lord has given me a residence in His personal abode. Giving a shalagrama, is the best form of charity, being equal to the result of donating the entire earth together with its forests, mountains, and all.”

Lord Siva speaking to Skanda states, “In this mortal world, if anyone does not worship Salagram śila, I do not at all accept any of their worship and obeisances.”

“Shalagramas do not require installation ceremony. When one begins the worship of shalagrama, however he should start with elaborate puja using all articles. The worship of shalagrama is the best form of worship, better than the worship of the sun.”- Skanda Purāṇa

Lord Shiva tells Parvati, “He who takes the charanamrita of shalagrama destroys all sinful reactions at their roots, even the killing of a brahmana.”- Skanda Purāṇa

“By taking the remnants of foodstuffs offered to shalagrama, one will get the result of performing many sacrifices.”- Skanda Purāṇa

Lord Shiva also states, “Even if a śila is cracked, split, or broken it will have no harmful effect if it is worshiped with attention and love by a devotee. It further states there that the Supreme Lord Hari, along with His divine consort, Lakshmi, live in the shalagrama that has either only the mark of a cakra, a cakra along with the mark of a footprint, or only a mark resembling a flower garland.”- Skanda Purāṇa

Lord Vishnu states that, “Any shila from the place of shalagramas can never be inauspicious though cracked, chipped, split in two though still in one piece, or even broken asunder.”- Brahma Purāṇa

Sri Narada Muni states, “It is impossible to fully explain the importance of Tulasi leaves (Holy Basil) in the worship of shalagrama, as Tulasi is the most beloved consort of Hari in the form of shalagrama.”- Brihan-naradiya Purāṇa

“Merely by touching a shalagrama one becomes freed from the sins of millions of births, so what to speak of worshiping Him! By shalagrama puja one gains the association of Lord Hari.”- Gautamiya Tantra

“Bhaktas should take the charanamrita mixed with Tulasi leaves from the shalagrama in their hand and sip it, sprinkling the balance on their heads.” – Gautamiya Tantra

“Shalagrama should not be placed on the earth or ground and worshiped.” – Sammohana Tantra

“In puja of shalagrama it is unnecessary to call the Lord for worship or request Him to return His abode upon completion.”- Shrimad Bhagavatam

“The Lord resides in many places in which he may be worshipped, but of all the places Salagrama is the best.” – from Garuda Purāṇa, Ch. 9, 1-23

Early one morning, late in the summer of 2016, I awoke just before sunrise and set out for the Kali Gandaki River. Clad in thick canvas pants and a pair of Vibram KSOs (well-suited as they were to walking around in fast-moving, shin-deep, river water), I made it a point to tie my Australian field hat securely to my head with a chinstrap before venturing out into Kagbeni’s lively pre-dawn streets. Since the wind was always threatening to steal the hat every time I turned my head, I figured that the discomfort of a spare bit of leather was a small price to pay against an afternoon burnt red in the glaring Himalayan sun. A mother and daughter in chubas, traditional Tibetan dresses, passed me cautiously, hunched over their hand brooms as they swept the previous day’s goat droppings from the cobblestones and out into the adjacent fields. An older Mustangi man, passing by with his caravan of mules and donkeys laden with rice and kerosene, shouted out a compliment. “Just like cowboys!” he yelled, touching his own imaginary brim. It was a typical morning in Kagbeni, filled with young women chatting on their way to fetch water from the village taps, small children playing in doorways, and the clink of copper cookware banging out breakfast in nearby guesthouse kitchens. I turned west and headed towards the roar of the water.

The Kali Gandaki river bed is nearly a quarter mile wide in most places around the village, and as the river slowly meanders back and forth across the valley, breaking up and remerging, undulating from bank to bank over the course of the day, it is continuously revealing a new landscape of stones and silt. The trick to finding Shaligrams, as one veteran pilgrim once taught me, was to first find one of the many small, shallow, side-streams branching off from the deep central currents. The best streams were the ones in the process of moving off course, easily identified by the tall banks of sediment actively breaking off and sliding down into the water below. Conversely, one could also seek out a stream that had recently petered out in favor of rejoining the main river and walk along its muddy edges slowly up-river, all the while keeping a sharp look-out towards any recently exposed areas.

As one picks their way carefully along through sun-warmed, clear waters, Shaligrams reveal themselves to the discerning eye. The constant flow of water combined with the settling of the heavy black silt grains that compose the Kali Gandaki are always exposing new stones, new pathways across the river bed, and new landscapes. Heraclitus was rather befitting when he said that, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’[i] Apt in this regard, the Kali Gandaki renews its places of pilgrimage as often as it renews its arrival of pilgrims. I too was also discovering a new landscape, stepping out onto the very same riverbed I had visited just the day before but which now looked completely different—any familiar hills or rocks washed away in the night. Within a few minutes a Hindu pilgrim I had met previously in the week, a middle-aged Indian man dressed all in white, came up alongside me and asked if any Shaligrams had been revealed to me today. I smiled and replied that they hadn’t yet but that I was ready and the day was still young. He nodded. “Darśan will come,” he said. “I am waiting too.”

I was familiar with the practice of darśan from my time in India three years earlier. For Hindus, darśan is one of the most important aspects of ritual veneration, especially when it comes to the worship of murti, the sacred images and statues of Hindu deities present in homes and temples. Darśan is a Sanskrit word meaning “to see,” but this aspect of “seeing” does not just mean to see the deity physically. Darśan means to behold the deity as he or she truly is beyond the material form obvious to the eye and in return, to be beheld by the deity yourself. In other words, “seeing” is a form of direct contact between persons (human and divine) mediated by an exchange of gazes in the physical world but not limited to the material bodies involved. It is also a kind of knowing (Eck 1998: 2-5); through sight, both deity and devotee are said to participate in the essence of the other.

In the act of darśan, the deity is an agent who “gives darśan” (darśan denā in Hindi), and it is the devotee who “takes darśan” (darśan lenā). In the views of many Hindus, God presents himself to be seen in material form because humans are, by their natures, limited to the use of their senses in order to apprehend the world they live in. Therefore, when a deity is present to offer darśan, devotees arrive to “receive” what is given. What is given then is a kind of physical, bodily, and spiritual, interaction through the medium of the senses. Like the physicality of interacting with holy places, the dhams (the spiritual abode of the deity), the reciprocal gift-giving relationship in the darśan draws on sense experience to construct a concrete, material, appearance of the divine through continuous cycles of relations and obligations exchanged through ritual. Not only does one “see” the deity and be “seen” in turn, one also “touches” the deity with the forehead and hands (sparśa) and is “touched” as well. Devotees may also variously touch the limbs of their own bodies to establish the presence of certain aspects of the deity or to invite the deity’s attention to a particular physical issue or desire for contact. During the darśan devotees also equally “smell” the incense and lotus flower perfumes and “hear” the sacred sounds of the mantras,[ii] the ringing of bells, and the blowing of the conch shell (Eck 1998: 11-12).

This “exchange of gazes” is then what enables a subject/object transformation where it often becomes unclear who is acting upon whom and in what capacity. Similar to Nancy Munn’s description of Aboriginal ‘transformations,’ where ancestor spirits produce material objects within which they are in some way embodied (1970), deities in the darśan (Shaligrams included) demonstrate their own dynamic subjectivities in an association with an object world (1970: 143-147) that includes human bodies, ritual objects and other sacra, and landscapes. But Hindu deities are not only consubstantial with the objects they produce or inhabit, they are often described as being no different than them—their mythic presence and their material presence as one and the same thing. This is where the exchange or attribution of viewpoints also becomes possible; where the deities’ desires and actions are open to interpretation, ambiguous, and communally shared. For Shaligrams, darśan constitutes the first vital link merging stone and body as well as between deity and fossil, a link that is initially established beginning with the physical movements and spaces of ritual.

Arrangements of darśan altars (deities, deity accessories, miniature animals or people, photographs, sacred stones, etc.) are often carried out with the intention that each piece of the diorama can be connected to sacred texts, local events, household needs, and historical narratives that relate to the place or to the person that the altar currently serves. On an earlier trip to West Bengal, where I was first introduced to Shaligrams at the Radha-Krishna (Sri Sri Radha Madhava) temple in Mayapur, a local brahmacharya (celibate monk) once explained that his favorite stories involving Krishna’s pastimes were any one of the many tales of his days as a young cow-herder. During the middle of the day, when the temple darśan altar was closed and veiled, he said that Krishna would then leave the temple at this time and engage in activities within the village dham, namely that he would re-enact his time as a cow-herder in the nearby goshala, where the sacred cows were kept. The brahmacharya often liked to represent these activities by placing small cow statues at the Krishna deity’s feet before closing the altar. For Shaligram devotees, the altar begins at the Kali Gandaki.

“I think that the river is like the flow of the mother,” commented a Hindu woman with a blue sari and a neat, white, bun sitting near the river banks. She held two small Shaligrams in her hand and, as I watched, began preparing a memorial puja ritual to mark the first anniversary of her own mother’s death[iii] and cremation. “It comes from the mountain. Shaligrams come from the mountain first. Then the river. I brought one Shaligram from my home here. It is Krishna Gopala; Krishna the infant with mother Yashoda. And then today another appears to me in Kali Gandaki. Now I have two Krishna Gopalas. This one you see,” she held the slightly larger of the two Shaligrams aloft, “this one is me just like I am with my mother. This one,” she now held aloft the other, “this one is my mother, who always worried after her children, letting me know she is with God. She is gone now, but I see her here. Krishna is here. She is here. I see them here, and they see me.”

The complex mapping of kinship, deity, time, and distance was common among Shaligram practitioners who often described, as this woman did, a Shaligram as being both a manifestation of God (in this case, Krishna Gopala) as well as evidence of the presence of a deceased loved one. The “birth” of a Shaligram from the mountain and the river could be expressed both as a divine birth and as a representation of the devotee’s own birth, the birth of their families, or of specific children. But this layering of time in the context of mythic origin became even more complex within the relationships between Shaligram and devotee where, in the example above, the Shaligram is simultaneously Krishna as an infant in the presence of his mother Yashoda as well as the Hindu woman in the presence of her own mother now deceased. Unsurprisingly, several areas along the banks of the Kali Gandaki river are often used to perform death memorial pujas and more often than not, Shaligrams are incorporated. This begins the bridging of birth and death through the flow of the river which mirrors the bridging of birth and death in the familial genealogy (inheritance) of the Shaligram. In this case, an old Shaligram, passed from mother to daughter, was carried and worshipped by a woman who spent her lifetime as a doting mother to her children. Then, a new Shaligram is born out of the river, which becomes that same deceased mother’s care beyond death, encapsulated in the story of Krishna Gopala. Through the material linking of myth, ritual, and landscape, both the deity and the dead can then be “seen.” This practice of seeing and being seen by the deity (and the dead) is one of the most common, and most important, parts of ritual practice among observant Hindus and is, also, one of the major driving forces behind pilgrimage in Mustang, and throughout South Asia.

Searching for Shaligrams is its own kind of darśan. As I walked with particular care not to disturb too much sediment in the water, I noticed two especially important things about the experience I was undertaking. Firstly, the dark, almost inky, black color of a Shaligram is the first thing that tends to catch the seeker’s eye (since it stands out against a mix of silty grey and dirt brown); the second was the subtle appearance of ripples or spirals (the tell-tale ridges of the fossil ammonite shell) along an exposed surface that might indicate that a stone in question was, in fact, Shaligram. But not every stone that might initially appear this way was really Shaligram. Oftentimes, the refraction of light through the flowing water gave the impression of similar patterns on otherwise smooth stones and the accumulation of silt underneath the current was occasionally responsible for the appearance of analogous ridges in the sand that covered the river bed. More than once, a burst of excitement and a quick scoop of water to retrieve a Shaligram appearing in the riverbed would end with nothing more than a handful of sand and a plain rock.

Finding a Shaligram often left me with the sense of something truly born from the river, something which was appearing only at the very moment that I happened to see it. Carried down through millennia of time (or 175 million years if we’re going by geological counts) by an ancient and sacred tirtha (a Sanskrit term meaning “bridge/place of crossing/ford”) revealing itself just at that moment and just for me. Something that I was “seeing,” perhaps, that hadn’t been there a moment before. Tirthas often refer to places where the divine world and the physical world are closer together, and it is not unusual for important pilgrimage sites and sacred rivers throughout South Asia to be labeled as tirtha. Later on, I also found tirtha to be an apt concept for describing Shaligrams and Shaligram practices as a whole. In Western discourses, religion and science are often juxtaposed against one another. But among Shaligram practitioners, “deity” is equally “fossil,” and “stone” is also “body.” Nor do Shaligram devotees hybridize religion and science, as two possible if unrelated points of view regarding the essential nature of the same object, but instead, use them to draw links between two different ways of knowing. This is to say that, rather than describe a blending of separate, “purer,” forms of knowledge (as one might use syncretism to describe the blending of religious traditions), Shaligram practice demonstrates how Shaligrams as ammonites, Shaligrams as persons, and Shaligrams as deities constitute a shared reality.

“Each time I remember Fragment 91 of Heraclitus: ‘You will not go down twice to the same river,’ I admire his dialectic still, because the facility with which we accept the first meaning (‘The river is different’) clandestinely imposes the second one (‘I am different’) and gives us the illusion of having invented it.” – Jorge Luis Borges, “New Refutation of Time,” Other Inquisitions.

[ii] The chanting of the mahamantra, for example, requires the repeated chanting of Krishna’s names and constitutes another instance in which one “sense aspect” of God is “no different” than another. Put another way, “seeing” God in the form of the deity is no different than “hearing” his name spoken or as Stephen Knapp explains: “The name Krishna is an avatara or incarnation of Krishna in the form of sound” (2011: pg 30).

[iii] In Nepal and India, a death anniversary is known as shraadh. The first death anniversary is called a barsy, from the word baras, meaning year in the Nepali and Hindi languages.

Shraadh means to give with devotion or to offer one’s respect. Shraadh is a ritual for expressing one’s respectful feelings for the ancestors. According to Nepali and Indian texts, a soul has to wander about in the various worlds after death and has to suffer a lot due to past karmas. Shraadh is a means of alleviating this suffering.

Shraddhyaa Kriyate Yaa Saa: Shraadh is the ritual accomplished to satiate one’s ancestors. Shraadh is a private ceremony performed by the family members of the departed soul. Though not mandated spiritually, it is typically performed by the eldest son and other siblings join in offering prayers together.